Fly Fishing in Wonderland

by Orange Perry Barnes

Below the Cascades

During the restful period following the noon-hour, when there is a truce between fisherman and fish, we lie in the shadow of the pines and read "Our Lady's Tumbler," till, in the drowsy mind fancy plays an interlude with fact. The ripple of the distant stream becomes the patter of priestly feet down dim corridors, and the whisper of the pines the rustle of sacerdotal robes. Through half-shut lids we see the clouds drift across the slopes of a distant mountain, double as it were, cloud and snow bank vying with each other in whiteness.

Undine Falls

Neither the companionship of man nor that of a boisterous stream will accord with our present mood. So, with rod in hand, we ford the stream above the island and lie down amid the wild flowers in the shadow of the western hill. For wild flowers, like patriotism, seemingly reach their highest perfection amid conditions of soil and climate that are apparently most uncongenial. Here almost in reach of hand, are a variety and profusion of flowers rarely found in the most favored spots; columbines, gentians, forget-me-nots, asters and larkspurs, are all in bloom at the same moment, for the summer is short and nature has trained them to thrust forth their leaves beneath the very heel of winter and to bear bud, flower, and fruit within the compass of fifty days.

I strongly urge every tourist, angling or otherwise, to carry with him both a camera and a herbarium. With these he may preserve invaluable records of his outing; one to remind him of the lavish panorama of beauty of mountain, lake and waterfall; the other to hold within its leaves the delicately colored flowers that delight the senses. A great deal is said about the cheap tourist nowadays, with the emphasis so placed on the word "cheap" as to create a wrong impression. With the manner of your travel, whether in Pullman cars, Concord coaches, buck-board wagons, or on foot, this adjective has nothing to do. It does, however, describe pretty accurately a quality of mind too often found among visitors to such places—a mind that looks only to the present and passing events, and that between intervals of geyser-chasing, is busied with inconsequential gabble, with no thought of selecting the abiding, permanent things as treasures for the storehouse of memory.

What fisherman is there who has not in his fly-book a dozen or more flies that are perennial reminders of great piscatorial events? And what angler is there who does not love to go over them at times, one by one, and recall the incidents surrounding the history of each?

We fondle the flies in our fancy,
Selecting a cast that will kill,
Then wait till a breeze from the canyon
Has rimpled the water so still;—
Teal, and Fern, and Beaver,
Coachman, and Caddis, and Herl,—
And dream that the king of the river
Lies under the foam of that swirl.
There's a feather from far Tioga,
And one from the Nepigon,
And one from the upper Klamath
That tell of battles won—
Palmer, and Hackle, and Alder,
Claret, and Polka, and Brown,—
Each one a treasured memento
Of days that have come and gone.
A joust of hardiest conflict
With knight in times of eld
Would bring a lesser pleasure
Than each of these victories held.
Rapids, and foam, and smother,
Lunge, and thrust, and leap,—
And to know that the barbed feather
Is fastened sure and deep.
Abbey, and Chantry, and Quaker,
Dorset and Canada,
Premier, Hare's Ear, and Hawthorne,
Brown Ant, and Yellow May,
Jungle-Cock, Pheasant, and Triumph,
Romeyn, and Montreal,
Are names that will ever linger
In the sunlight of Memory Hall.

The whole field of angling literature contains nothing more exquisite than the following description of the last days of Christopher North, as written by his daughter:

"It was an affecting sight to see him busy, nay, quite absorbed with the fishing tackle scattered about the bed, propped up with pillows—his noble head, yet glorious with its flowing locks, carefully combed by attentive hands, and falling on each side of his unfaded face. How neatly he picked out each elegantly dressed fly from its little bunch, drawing it out with trembling hand along the white coverlet, and then replacing it in his pocket-book, he would tell ever and anon of the streams he used to fish in of old."